Chapter 94 – The Hours She Let Me Keep
POV: Jaeheon Kang
He didn't count the days.
Not exactly.
But when he reached the bottom of the small tea tin on the second shelf of her kitchen, he realized it had been five.
Five days since she walked out at dawn.
Five mornings without her voice, her scent, her presence.
Five nights without sleep.
Not really.
The first morning, he had stayed in the guest room until noon.
Then opened the curtains.
Let light in.
Sat at her marble dining table with his lyric notebook, a pencil, and silence.
The second morning, he washed her teacup.
She hadn't used it recently—
But it was still sitting there. Near the sink.
He washed it anyway.
With care. Like it was something sacred.
He never touched her things without reason.
But now…
Now, he needed something of her hands to remain.
The third morning, he found her books.
Lined like soldiers on a single black shelf.
Every title in a different language.
He didn't read them.
Didn't move them.
He just stared at them for an hour.
And thought about what kind of mind she had—
To devour the world and still hunger for more.
The fourth morning, he sat on her sofa and played something.
Just soft chords. Quiet harmonies.
No lyrics.
She had no piano.
But he played it anyway.
On the table. On his thigh. In the air.
Because she lived in a silence so heavy—
It made him ache to fill it.
But he didn't dare.
So he played in phantom notes.
Unheard. Unwritten.
And on the fifth morning—
He stood in her hallway.
Still wearing the same black hoodie.
Still barefoot on the cold marble.
Still waiting.
Not because he thought she'd return today.
But because she hadn't told him when not to wait.
And so, he waited.
She hadn't locked him out.
She hadn't erased the card.
She hadn't sent anyone to remove him.
And that absence—
That unbearable, echoing absence—
Was what kept him rooted.
It wasn't a confession.
Wasn't forgiveness.
Wasn't intimacy.
But it was time.
Time in her space.
Time in her silence.
Time inside a life no one else would ever touch.
He thought of writing again.
But no lyrics came.
Only lines.
The air here tastes like her.
Sharp. Clean. Unforgiving.
I think I'm dying just a little—
But at least I'm dying where she lives.
He didn't know if she would return.
Didn't ask.
Because part of him—
A part he would never admit aloud—
Didn't need her to.
Not yet.
He would wait.
Because waiting, in her absence,
Was the closest thing to being allowed to love her.